Stop Waiting For Permission

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What happens when you stop waiting for permission to live? In this episode of 66, we're taking down with every conference. From yoga studios to hike controls to start forward and stay. Can't turn explore without shame or allergy. If you've ever been told, your body is too much. This episode is a reminder that your body isn't the problem. The world just wasn't designed with all of us in mind. So grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let's get into this powerful conversation with Amber Carnes.

Meet Amber Carnes And Her Work

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Welcome to Big Sexy Chat.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Hey all, welcome back to Big Sexy Chat. And if you're new here, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. Happy to have you. Be a part of our fat community here. My name is Crystal, and I'm in San Jose, California, recording Big Sexy Chat. And today I have Amber Carnes. She's so amazing. I've known her about 12 years or so from the Fat Liberation World. Hi, Amber. Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to have you. Before we get too far into this, why don't you tell everybody how to find you in case they're very interested and they want to learn more about your offerings and your yoga and your adventures where you center fat babes?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

For sure. Um yeah, my website is ambercarnes.com. It's just my name, amber k rnes.com, and you'll find all my stuff there. I'm also on Instagram, Ambercarnes Official, and YouTube, Ambercarnes. But if you search Amber Carnes or Body Positive Yoga, my stuff will come up. So you'll find me.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Body positive yoga was so huge for so long. That's how I originally learned about you.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, um, I think like a lot of people that I've met on the internet, that's sort of what they associate me with. Um yeah, it was an amazing era of the Amber story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Just like my aunt, my having this store for five years was a really great part of my crystal story that um Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I think like when we met, that was the chapter we were both in. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

So I know um a lot of people talk crap about social media, and I I'm I'll be the first one to talk crap about it. But one thing that's really cool about social media is getting to meet people that you would never have the opportunity to meet, and um, because we're kind of part of the same community, I got to know you. So social media does some do some great things. And the one of the great things that came out of this is that I learned that Amber moved to Las Vegas slash Henderson, my hometown.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yay!

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Yeah, and we actually we we finally got to meet last March, this March. So we finally got to meet in person. I felt like I already knew you though.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

I know, right? We have been sort of in each other's orbit online for a long time, but it's like always fun for me to get to meet my internet friends in real life. So yeah, it was fun to hang out with you when you were in town last time.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

It's pretty amazing. I agree. I'll be back, I think, in October. So I'm my 40th high school reunion. Oh my goodness. So I think I'm gonna go and I think we're gonna drive down to spend time with my family. So so yeah, also, how about living in Vegas

Falling For Las Vegas Desert Life

SPEAKER_03 3:20

or Henderson? Well, sounds crazy, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Oh my god, it is, but I kind of love it. I don't know. I'm I'm still new to town. I just moved here last October. Um, so I've been here less than a year, and I'm really having a love affair with the desert. Well, maybe not this past week or two because it's so hot. But I do miss taking my like long hikes during the day. But um, you know, I think that yeah, I'm really loving it. It's it's amazing, sort of access to nature, and I don't know, a really convenient city to live in, like compared to other US cities that I've lived in. And, you know, the airport's nine minutes from my house and everything's five minutes away, and there's like cheap gyms, and um like the I think the access to nature was like the biggest surprise to me because like I had spent a little bit of time out here before I moved, um coming out here for work trips and stuff, but I've sort of like been in that person's world, and so now getting to branch out and like find everything, and the desert landscapes are just so incredible and really different than what I was used to on the east coast. I'm definitely East Coast Girl, like yeah, Valley of Fire, so cool. It's like an hour from where I live in um, yeah, Red Rock. I mean, all of that, and then and there's like national parks that are like all close. So I'm just starting to explore those, you know.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

So loving it.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

What do you think about that dry heat? I think it's different than east coast heat personally.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

100% is different. I feel like, you know, everyone's like, oh my god, it's you know, 100 degrees at 9 p.m. I'm like, yeah, but it don't feel like 100 degrees does on the east coast. And it's also like I just went back to visit my family in North Carolina, and the humidity and the bugs and all that stuff, you know, it adds a layer that like isn't here. Here's just like the hot hairdryer blowing in your face. But like nine months out of the year, it's lovely. So it is can't complain about that in the winter, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Nighttime when it's 90 degrees and there's no sun beating you down, it actually feels amazing. Your bones feel good, your muscles feel good, everything's loose. And um, when I was growing up, I used to describe like this little fat girl riding her bicycle everywhere, right? Pumping, pumping, pumping, because I've been fat since like the second grade. And I swear to you, no matter which way I was riding my bicycle, there was a hot blow dryer pointing at my face, pushing me back. That's true. I hate it. But I I love it now. I didn't like it as a kid. And um, you said something in one of the things that you were writing about, either on your newsletter or maybe your website, but um how you know usually you sweat to cool off, but in Vegas, it's so hot, your sweat actually evaporates very quickly and it doesn't really cool you off.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, it's like I don't know, I feel like um on the East Coast, like when you sweat, like your clothes stay wet, you know, you're kind of like, oh, I'm swampy. But like out here, it just goes away. And so you come home and you're like, oh, I'm covered in a crust of salt. Like it's very different. You almost just don't even notice that you're sweating. Uh you're a salt. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm just a salted piece of meat ready to roast in the sun. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Let me tell you, growing up there, it was intense. You know, um, my boyfriend tracks the weather in Vegas because we go there a lot. He's like, Crystal, today the low is 90 degrees. That's the low. Like, I know I grew up there's like that's the low. Like, yeah, that's what happens in the desert. And also, you know, there's everybody has a swimming pool, it seems like every every property has a swimming pool, like in the hotels, and there's a lot of water there, even though there's not enough water there.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

That's right. Yeah, it's like there. I've I tell everybody Vegas has everything except for a beach and like a real art museum, but like everyone has a pool, so like that's the beach, kind of so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Lake Mead used to have kind of a beachy feeling to it, especially when it was full. And we used to go camping out there a lot. We would take our boat out to like the different coves and camp out on their little beaches there, but it looks so sad now

Nature Awe And Hoover Dam Stories

SPEAKER_03 7:10

when I see it. It's like, oh, but have you been to Hoover Dam?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yes, very impressive. Yeah, I hiked that uh it's like a railroad tunnel trail that goes there, and um, it was a super cool trail. I was like, oh, this would be good for like bikes, or it's actually pretty accessible, like you could roll a chair down there or whatever. And um, but the Hoover Dam, yeah, so so cool. And you like walk out, you're like on the highway basically. There's like a wall between you and the the trucks screaming past. It's so beautiful out there, though. Yeah. Did you go underneath the dam for on the tour? No, I haven't done that part yet.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

I probably told you this when I met you in person, but um when I was a kid, everybody had to go on this, you know, the field trip to Hoover Dam. And I was nervous because there was water dripping, and I was like, Oh, excuse me. There's like, oh, it's condensation, little girl. I was like, Oh, I don't know, but it's yeah, I was still like, look into that, guys. Like you guys know this is happening, right? Like, yeah, it's still frightening when you're like 12, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

No, I would have definitely noticed that too.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

I feel like when you go down there, it feels different. You feel the um, you feel the pressure, you can feel it, it feels different in your body. It's like, okay, it's a lot of water. It's so cool. It's amazing that they did that when they did that, but it's still people are still traveling all over the world from all the world to come see it. Yeah, right. Tell us what you're

Why Body Positive Yoga Matters

SPEAKER_03 8:31

up to now. I know that you started out in yoga and you still have yoga and you still offer have a yoga offering, right? For people who want to do yoga at home or elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Oh, yeah, yeah, I could talk about that a little bit. So yeah, body positive yoga. Like, I started teaching in 2010. And when I took my teacher training, I wasn't really planning to teach. I just want to like learn more of the yoga. But then I had so many people that were telling me, I would never walk into a yoga studio, like it's too intimidating. But if you're the teacher, I'll come to class. And I was like, what is that about? Like, I'm obviously not because I'm the best teacher. I wasn't even a teacher yet. And I really realized like all these people that, you know, folks in bigger bodies or people who have mobility limitations, older folks, you know, people that didn't feel like they were considered at all by the yoga industry or by fitness or, you know, things like that. Um, you know, we want people who we can like see ourselves reflected in, you know what I mean? And so like they have had the experience of going into classes and having teachers like ignore them or not know what to do with them, or, you know, just rest in child's pose, like when the class was doing something else. And I was like, oh yeah, maybe there is something for me to share because like I was always in a bigger body and I had had to learn how to like move my belly out of the way to make a room and a pose or figure out how to put myself in these different positions because the teachers literally didn't know what to do with me. And at the time, you know, it's probably hard to remember a time before like Instagram and every, you know, there was so much like fat community online and like that definitely existed for sure. But when it came to like yoga teachers, it wasn't that many people that had sort of like an internet presence. And so I started creating um videos about, you know, like how to keep your chest from suffocating you, or you know, how to do sun salutations in a bigger body, and it like really resonated with people, and I ended up, you know, um creating body positive yoga and doing a ton of like workshops and retreats and online courses and stuff like that, and being a big part of the accessible yoga movement and bringing that really into the mainstream in American yoga um like over the past 15 years, and um a few years ago, uh, you know, a pandemic happened uh and like everyone else in every other industry, like yoga was shaken up, and so was my life. And I've ended up pivoting my work, you know, away from teaching yoga full time. But recently I did this project where I went through all the videos. I went on my Vimeo account, I had like over 600 videos, if you can believe it. Um, from over the years, yeah, from like 2014 onward or something. And I went through and kind of picked the best of the best, like from you know, classes to resources for teachers, you know, audio meditations, workbooks with reflections, like all kinds of different stuff, and put that together in a library of content and um launched that on my site a little while ago. Um, and so it's like seven bucks a month, or you can join, you know, for a year for a lifetime. But um, I've gotten some really good feedback on it, especially from other teachers who are like looking for that type of information or inspiration on like how does this actually look, you know, in classes to create accessible yoga classes that work for a wide range of bodies. And, you know, um so yeah, I, you know, I think that was it was like my uh journey into yoga, like in a fat acceptance community, like seemed to like kind of happen at the same time, you know, and when I used to be on Fat Shanistan Live Journal and all of those sort of things that were formative to me in the like um, I don't know, late 2000s, early 2010s. Um, and it was like really cool to kind of be part of that, like uh, I guess, wave of bloggers and people that were like sharing stuff online. Um, and you know, that's like when we met each other and all of that. And like social media, yeah, it used to be a place that like, you know, we could really find the people that um and connect with them in in a time that like that wasn't that common for everybody to have. You know, we didn't all have a camera in our hands at all times. We didn't all have like we didn't have tools to figure out how to like make a website and all of that kind of stuff in the same way as we do now. So yeah, I'm very old in internet years.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

I feel like Yeah, same. Totally. Yeah, I I loved I used to have so much fun with social media. It just got so toxic, but you know, that's everything. And you have to be where you have a lot of um lot of people together in one place. Of course, there's gonna be toxic people, and because you don't, you know, of course on online, you get to hide behind your keyboard, you know. So yeah, it's a little exhausting, especially as a fat person. But um yeah, I remember that so clearly. And I remember I met Val Sagun, who has um fat girl yoga, maybe it was can't remember the name. She's here locally and she would yeah, she's in San Jose too, right? Yeah, and she would come do classes at my store. We would do you would use the chairs and the floor in my store, and we would do yoga classes there on the weekend. It was so fun. Yeah, it was just like a great way to get people together, and we go have brunch.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah, love it.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Can't go wrong. And now Jessiman Stanley, she's just everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Mm-hmm. Yeah, Jessine is super cool and doing some really cool work. Yeah, she's got a site called the underbelly, uh, has like a ton of yoga classes, and she's been, you know, super visible and and uh so strong.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah, her body is so crazy strong, it just blows my mind. And she lives in a fat body, and yeah, she's also a black woman in a fat body doing yoga, and um, it's fucking incredible what she can do, and she she just takes her belly and just moves it out of the way, and that's what I used to teach us to just move these things out of the way, whatever you gotta do. She's no no shame, no nothing. Just like this is me. Yeah, why do

Diet Culture Anger And Medical Bias

SPEAKER_03 14:20

people feel like they need to comment on other people's bodies? I will never understand.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

No, I don't know. You know, I think that like I don't know. One thing I've noticed over the years, especially if it's like that with those of us that are like into fat liberation or that have like worked to accept our bodies and or at least, you know, come to a neutral place about it or whatever, it kind of like holds up a mirror, you know, to people who feel like they need to strive to like be a certain thing, or you know, maybe they have sort of that like beauty currency. And like if we say, okay, actually we're opting out, you know, or we're doing a different way, then that kind of like I think for some people it feels like, oh, well, like what I'm you know, this is meaningless then. And like, yeah, like that is kind of like the takeaway, but I think it's hard to like come to that point of acceptance, and so that anger can show up, or that sort of like, you know, we've been conditioned all since we were little babies that some bodies are valuable and some bodies aren't. And I think unless you've like really kind of like uh pick that apart, then yeah, you're still like kind of running on that old software. And right, yeah, I don't know. I wish everybody would stop calming on everyone's bodies too.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

It's definitely an old operating system for sure. And nobody hates fat people who don't diet more than people on the internet. People get really pissed off if you're not trying to become smaller, yeah, you don't feel like there's a thin girl in here just dying to get out. Just I am just gonna be fat. I'm gonna be fat till the day I die. I don't diet anymore. I haven't dieted in like 25, 30 years. And I don't I don't engage in diet culture any longer. I try really hard not to. Of course, I know I have my blind spots too, but yeah, it gets people really pissed off when you're not on a diet all the time. Like, nope. Not like last time I did a diet was maybe 30 years ago, it was Weight Watchers, and I um the day I got went off that diet was the day I had a um I had to have a uh what is that organ called that little weird organ that we don't need uh gallbladder, have my gallbladder removed because I ate some fat that day after I've been to On Weight Watchers and blah blah blah. So yeah, that was the last time I dieted, and I'm like, I'm I'm I'm getting out of this shit. And um, you know, less than five percent of people who go on a diet, it stays uh they stay thin, you know. Um most diets fail, as we all know, but I guess not everybody's gotten the memo because even doctors still prescribe diets, which is blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

No, they do. I was just like watching some friends' Instagram stories, and she's like attending school to be a registered dietitian and she's in a fat body, and she was like showing all the stuff in the textbooks, and she was like, No wonder doctors treat you like you are non-compliant, they don't believe you about what you eat, they see you as less than because this literally is being taught to them in a textbook, and even though like she would show the study, you know, there's that study that says like that did uh that men in the study who were um you know obese or overweight, these aren't words that I would use, but um uh had a actually longer live a longer life than people who weren't. And even though that was the conclusion, they still like presented it in this other way. And it was just like, yeah, they're the willing sort of like ignorance. Because I mean, if you think about it, like a lot of the medical industry, um, a lot of capitalism, a lot of all those systems that we live in, it serves them to hold up this body type that most of us actually don't have and don't have any hope of ever reaching. Like it's a moving target for a reason, right? Because like if we all felt okay about our bodies, then we're not gonna buy stuff to fix the problem of our bodies or any of that, you know? And so, and the medical industry needed to create, you know, fatness as a disease so that it could treat that disease with like all these interventions that we have seen and like the new ones that are happening. And I think like, yeah, liberated fat people uh cause cause the greedy system to lose money, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

We those GLP one people do not like us, they're like, bitch, we need to lose weight. I know.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

I know, like no thanks, staying fat.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Exactly. That's I know it's it's really disrupts the status quo, you know. They're not it, and I think it makes people upset with themselves somehow. Maybe there's like, you know, maybe they're thinking, why can't I do that too? Why do I why do I buy into this? You know, I don't who knows. We all have our reasons, you know, we all have our conditioning. It's just like fat girls can wear um crop tops. Sometimes when I see a fat girl in a crop top, I'm like, oh god, oh my no, Crystal, we can wear those now because I was conditioned to believe that you can't show a role, but like I didn't come out of the womb thinking fat girls should not wear crop tops. It was something I learned.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

And I that's right. I mean, I think that's the interesting thing is like all of us learned it at some point, which is like it means it can be unlearned, also, right? We didn't come out of the womb knowing like this type of body is hot and this type of body is gross or whatever. Like, all of that was taught to us by you know, a system that does not have like human care at the center of it, you know, it's it's got a different um agenda.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Just like racism, right? No, no babies are born racist. So it's conditioning. Yeah, we have a lot of work to do as humankind, but yeah, stop coming on people's bodies, it's not interesting. But now boring. Yes, tell me more about your bowel movements. That sounds fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, are we asking inappropriate questions? Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

I got I got a few for you. Yeah, I'm really excited to tell everybody what about what you're up to now.

Adventure Retreats As A Shortcut

SPEAKER_03 19:48

And I know Amber, do you you identify with the word fat? Do you identify as a fat person? Yeah, you do. Yeah, so you are doing something that's centering fat people, and that's so rare in this world. So tell everybody about your adventures.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yeah, so I, you know, started running retreats in 2015, and back in the day they were yoga retreats, right? Because I had a lot of students that were like, you know, I keep seeing people go on these yoga retreats. Like, which retreat do you recommend? And I was like, none of them. So then I was like, let me just create the one that I would want to see. And so I started hosting body positive yoga retreats. I did like body positive yoga summer camp, it was like the first ever retreat that I hosted. And I was like, you know, I was a camp kid as a kid, and I've always been kind of a community person, and I wanted like that experience as adults. And I think like, you know, one of the things we were just talking about, you know, when we're children, often many of us had the experience that like when we moved our bodies as children, we did so like I'll just speak for myself. You know, I was like riding my bike to the ditch to catch tadpoles, I was like jumping on the trampoline, I was climbing trees, I was jumping into the swimming pool. You know, I was doing all those things because they were fun or because I wanted to, or because they were means to an end, not because I thought good people exercise and bad people don't, or I need to make my body look a certain way, you know, I didn't even know any of that stuff yet. And there was a very different sort of like intrinsic joy and motivation that came from that type of like kind of free kid movement before we knew we were supposed to be pissed off at our bodies all the time, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

It's like more like play.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Play, exactly. And so like I wanted to bring an element of that back, you know, into our lives as adults. And so, like, that's why I kind of went with like the summer camp theme, and we would practice yoga and like go to my favorite swimming holes in Virginia and do all this different stuff. And I branched out to doing a bunch of different locations, and then the pandemic hit, and you know, I had to cancel everything for a couple of years. And um, when I came back, I wasn't teaching yoga, you know, I hadn't taught yoga for a long time. Um, and I uh noticed, I had noticed like when I started introducing these little elements of adventure into my retreats, whether it was kind of like jumping off some rock. Into the river or doing a little hike or like whatever it was. I noticed how quickly for people, those type of like kind of a little bit scary, a little bit daring experiences, but like done in really good company where everyone's like holding this supportive container for each other and holding the confidence for each other, just immediately changed the way that people thought about themselves and kind of experienced their bodies. And I would hear them talk about this when we would have like sharing circles and whatever else in these events. And so I started pivoting my events more toward adventure-based stuff. Um, I I kind of say now that like yoga is sort of like the long journey, like home to your body and yourself, and adventure is the shortcut. And so um, you know, there's something about doing something that scares you a little bit in a community of other people who have a similar body type to you, a similar lived experience to you, um, who also are there to do the same thing. And sort of like that space of being a beginner or doing something that you're uncomfortable as as an adult is really uncomfortable for a lot of us. You know, we're not often in that space where it's like, you know, when you're a kid, everything's low stakes. You you don't you don't have health insurance to worry about, you're not gonna like you know, embarrass yourself. You're just trying things. And like, so I wanted to create, you know, places where people could do that. And um, so let's see, this year I'm running four events. Um, I in April I had um Wild Body Surf Camp. And so this is the third one that I've run in Sailita, Mexico, which is on the west coast of Mexico. Um, cute little hippie surf town. And I've had, you know, now a few dozen women in their 30s to 60s, most of them in bigger bodies, learning to surf for the first time. Um bad people can surf. Bad people can surf. Yes, we can.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

I didn't try surfing until I was 42 years old. I'm 44 now. Um, and you know, I grew up in a surfing town. I grew up in Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which are both like Primo East Coast surf destinations. And I always wanted to surf since the time I was a teenager, but I never saw anybody that looked like me on a surfboard. I would go into the surf shops. They didn't have wetsuits in my size. You know, there was a pretty clear message that surfing wasn't for me. So I thought, you know, and so I just kind of like never even considered it as a possibility for myself. And in 2024, I found myself in this town, Sayolita, visiting a friend that I have been friends with for like 20 years. She's surf, she surfs. She she came to it later in life too. And I was like, should I try it? You know, I was just like, maybe I got nothing to lose. Like, I'm here trying to shake things up and like have a change of scenery. Like, what's the worst that could happen? I fall into the ocean. Like, so I booked a surf lesson, and it was like me and these two little teenage girls who like immediately popped up and were like riding, like it was the easiest thing ever, and it was not that way for me. But I had so much fun trying, and it was like so amazing to kind of like even just catching a wave and riding it in on my belly, like feeling the that interplay with the ocean, a beautiful day. You know, I was like, it was fun to try. It wasn't, you know, when I fell off or when I messed up, I would just come up laughing because I'm like in the water enjoying myself. And I, you know, that week I went surfing like five different times, and I, you know, it's not like I got good, but what I did was like as I was sitting out there, I just was like, I need to bring other fat women into this space with me. Like, I know that A, there's like a better way to break down this surf lesson that makes it less intimidating and more accessible because I had done that with yoga, you know, I understood how to like make space for people in a place that didn't consider them in their bodies, and I was like, I want to make this dream happen. And then the next year I booked a retreat, it sold out in like two days. So I booked another one and that one sold out too. And so I ran two of those in 2025, and we were back in 2026. Next year we're gonna have a newbie week and an alumni week because so many of these women want to come back and surf again. And it's just incredible to see like a group of fat women like with the surfboards going into the water. We like did a little video project this year and took all this footage, and I can't wait to share it. Like, I'm working on this kind of like little mini movie about what we did there, and you know, just I think about like when I was a kid, it would have been powerful for me to see the images, you know. I was like, these images deserve to be seen, you know. Like we are out here, this is our ocean too. You know, surfing is an activity that like most bodies can participate in some flavor or another. It just requires like an invitation and meeting people where they are, and it's not an exclusive thing that's only for like mean teenage boys with abs or whatever, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Like, so were you crazy sore after you tried surfing five times in one week? Uh yes, 100 years. Oh, did you just crash hard at night and just be like conked out to the world?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

I did. I feel like, you know, uh, even an hour in the water is like a really long time when you're surfing like for the first time. Um, even now, I mean, I'm, you know, I think like no matter what your fitness level is, like, it's not preparing you for surfing. Like the only thing that's gonna prepare you for surfing is surfing. And so, like, if you don't live at a beach that you can surf at like all the time, it's something that is like it's not easy for anybody, but it is approachable in the way of like everyone can try it, everyone can catch waves. You might not be standing up hanging tin for you know two minutes on your first wave. Most people aren't, even if they're in smaller bodies. Surfing is like an Olympic sport. Sure, you know, it is I've heard it said that it's like the third hardest sport in the world, and yet, you know, I've I've taken all kinds of people out into the water to have a good first experience with it. And most of them want to come back and do it again. So, you know, it's exciting to be able to do that. I like making space where we're not supposed to be, you know, or where society says we're not supposed to be.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Yes, I love it. Um, you made me think of something when you said that's our ocean too. Something that I used to have to do a lot when I had my boutique is a lot of coaching people. Yes, you can wear lingerie. And I used to tell people, like, uh have you ever seen an ugly polar bear? No. Have you ever seen an ugly whale? No. I mean, have you ever seen an ugly sea lion? No. Yeah. Why do we think fat bodies are ugly? We think all these huge animals are gorgeous and beautiful. Yeah. How come we also don't think that about ourselves? It's like, you are so beautiful, you're so gorgeous, you are so strong, you are so unique. You can you can do whatever you want to. You don't have to fuck everybody else if they don't like it. Let them have they're gonna be making fun of you anyway. Give them a sh give them a reason to make fun of you. I'm gonna surf surf and look like a buffoon, but I'm gonna do it. But large things are not ugly. Why redwood trees are not ugly, you know? So I know totally think of that.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

No, I I feel that in nature a lot too. I um I was talking to somebody about this recently that like, you know, why do we look at, I don't know, I was thinking of like, you know, just the straight up like textures, right? Like, so okay, the cellulite on my thighs or like whatever. Um I look at that texture on my leg and I'm supposed to hate it, but then when I see it as a ripple on water or sand or canyon wall, I I think it's very beautiful. And like the only reason that we think our bodies are gross or less than is because of these beauty standards that were like invented to like convince us to solve the problem of our bodies by like buying shit to fix it. And like, you know, our bodies just are what they are, you know, they exist in so many like weird, beautiful shapes and forms. And I feel like, you know, being outdoors or being in nature, like you said, like no one thinks a whale is ugly. Like, remember that little hippo that everybody was like in love with on the internet? And I was like, this hippo is nothing but fat rolls, yes. Oh we see a baby's thighs, and we're like, oh, it's adorable. And it's like, well, why are my fat thighs adorable?

SPEAKER_03 30:22

You know, that's my point, you know? Yeah, never seen the ugly big huge mountain or big huge redwood tree. They're all yeah, fucking beautiful. I don't, it's too bad that we feel that way about our bodies a lot of times. And yeah, oh maybe even for someone who's as steeped in fat liberation as I am. Sometimes I like I'm a little bit kind of like, oh, my 40th high school reading is coming up. I'm like, Yeah, we gotta get back in there and be like, Do you gotta do the work, girl? I gotta do the work. Cause yeah, it's everything is out of, especially right now, GLP wins and stuff. It's like, ooh, the world is really fat, anti-fat. It's hostile, yeah. It's hostile, yeah, yeah. So tell us more about other adventures you have coming

Upcoming Trips From Zion To Galapagos

SPEAKER_03 30:57

up.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Oh, yeah. So, okay, we did the surf camp in April, and we're gonna be doing that again next year in April. Um, so this fall I've got three different trips. Um, one is a hiking and camping trip at the Valley of Fire. So it's about an hour outside Las Vegas, beautiful desert landscapes like you've never seen, incredible red rocks, and just like sometimes you kind of feel like I'm on another planet. There's like bighorn sheep out there, and like, I don't know, just Mars. It is like Mars. Honestly, it's so different. And um, and so I'm running that with um Andrea DeMaio, who runs Ample Movement. So she's a fat um yoga teacher and hiker and adventurer um uh from western New York. And so she's coming out to run that with me. That's sold out actually. Um, and then I also have uh a trip to Zion National Park, which is a road trip with hiking, no camping required. And this one is a really small trip. I'm only taking six people, so we're like kind of like get in the van and we're gonna go and we're gonna see so much. And the the way I've designed this trip is um I picked hikes that are um a short distance but feel like a really big adventure. I went out and like personally handpicked all the different hikes that we're doing to make it really accessible for a wide range of bodies. You know, we're sleeping in comfy hotel beds every night. Um, we're gonna have a nice big van where nobody's feeling squished. Um, and it's a it's more of a road trip. So we're gonna go and jump out at all these different beautiful landmarks, see all different sides of Zion National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, these gorgeous Utah landscapes with like the Red Rock and you know, beautiful uh Virgin River inside of Zion. We're finishing it up with like a trip to the hot springs, which is like a beautiful, um, really relaxing uh like spa, outdoor spa. Yeah, with nature all around you is so nice.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Those hot springs look amazing.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, it was that in Utah? It is, yeah. That one's like 30 minutes outside the entrance, the main entrance to Zion National Park. So um, and I wasn't so sure about the hot springs because you know sometimes it's like it could be a little bit too corporate vibes or whatever. But when I went and I was just like, oh yeah, this is the way to end the trip, and it's super nice. So um, yeah, I still have a few spots left on that one. That's gonna be in late September. And then in in November, I'm leading a trip for a company called Woe Travel. Um, they're a women's adventure company, and they do lots and lots of trips um a year, and they have like a couple of plus size trips. So they are the ones that I don't know if you remember in 2019, there were 22 fat women that climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and they made a documentary about it. Um, so they ran that trip, and that was their first kind of like dedicated plus size trip. So my friend Andrea, who's doing the Valley of Fire trip with me, she guides trips for them also and has been to like Scotland and canoeing the boundary waters and Galapagos and all kinds of different places. Um, so I'm taking uh plus size, a group of plus size women to the Galapagos for nine days for a pretty epic adventure. And we're gonna snorkel with sea lions and hike volcano craters and see the giant tortoises and all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

So didn't our our our mutual friend Deb do the um Everest trip or the That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Kilanajara trip. Yeah, for sure. Yay, Deb. I was gonna say too, just kind of uh as a little bit of closer, let's kind of start wrapping this up. But oh sure. When you live in Las Vegas, everybody wants to come visit you. Yes, they do. That's the bonus of living there, is because people, oh Amber's in Vegas, let's make a quick trip to Vegas, or like while we're there, we'll go see Amber. It's just so fun because everybody wants to come there. It's so easy, it's very accessible. Um it's usually pretty affordable to fly there. And it's like you can rent a car there cheap, you can rent a hotel cheap. Certainly expensive shit, too. But um, yeah, if you want to do it on a budget, it's really easy. And even like when we go to the grocery store and we're there, I'm like, oh my god, the food is so inexpensive here compared to the Bay Area. Everything is inexpensive, but right, right, right. I love it. I'm like, oh my god we got to dinner. We don't, it's like 20 bucks each. How the hell did that work out? But just things are more affordable there.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, I feel like everyone I meet here is moved here from California because similar climate, but way more affordable.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

So yeah, much, very much affordable. What part of Vegas are you living? You're living in the Henderson area, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah, I'm in Henderson, kind of south uh south Henderson, south of Green Valley.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

It's a very mature uh area of Las Vegas. The mature people there.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yes, definitely. I'm I'm gonna be moving uh to a different apartment um at the um like kind of the end of the summer. So um we'll see where I end up. But I I like it over here, so I'm I'm excited to stay in this area a few years and see what happens. I want to bring more, you know, accessible adventure trips, and there's so much proximity here. Like I really want to do a Grand Canyon trip and a trip to the Utah parks and a trip to Yosemite, you know. Like I I really have a big vision for it. And I I like creating these events that center fat bodies and center bodies that kind of get left behind by the outdoor industry. So Vegas seems like a a place that I can make that happen, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Yeah, very much more, yeah. It's there's a lot of things you can do there for a lot more affordably than you can do in other places.

Accessibility Planning And Self Permission

SPEAKER_03 36:23

But um, when you are selling your adventures, you kind of help people understand like what is the level of physical fitness that you would probably require for this trip.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Oh, yeah, it depends on the trip. You know, the surfing, uh, the surfing retreat and tends to be like a little bit higher activity level because we are, you know, walking around or the surfing itself is very physical, but I've sort of adapted that too. Like now I'm renting golf carts, so people have a way to get around and not expend so much energy if they want to save it all for the surfing. You know, the the hiking and camping trip, it's like you do have to be able to like get up and down off the ground to get in and out of your tent, but also we're all there to help each other, you know what I mean? And so I really strive to find a way to let everybody participate in the ways that they can. And so if folks ever have uh a doubt or a question about whether it's appropriate, all they have to do is reach out. I also have a section on all my retreat pages about accessibility that talks about things like you know, seating and bathrooms and what the venue is like and stairs, and I like to let people know ahead of time just so they can really feel prepared and and understand like whether or not they want to opt into that. And it's also an environment of permission, you know, like if you want to skip something, if you need to take a minute to like you're overstimulated because you're in a new place with all these people and you want to like take a nap instead of come to the planned activity, that's a hundred percent legit and allowed. And I think it's good, you know, it's it models for people how to take care of themselves and not just feel like they have to push through because like that's what society says we're supposed to do, or that's what capitalism says we should do.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

I have found as I get older, I'm 58 now, but um the longer I'm away from my home, the more dysregulated I get. And I just I'm like, what I feel strange, you know. I'm like, it's I'm out of my routine. And I'm not really a routine gal, but I like some. I like to sleep in my bed, you know, I like to use my bathroom, I like to eat my foods, I like to go to bed when I want to go to bed. And when I'm out traveling or for work or for fun, it's like I feel a little bit off. So it's nice that you offer that because some of us, yeah, we need a little break from everybody, even us extroverts. I'm an extroverted extrovert. Sometimes I even burn out on people and I need let me get back into my body, let me get in here because I'm all over the place, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Totally. And I think, you know, especially when we travel, like there's so much new input and there's so many things that the things that we sort of use to ground ourselves are not there. And so, you know, it's it's an invitation, I think, to like be more tuned into our bodies and make accommodations for ourselves. Like, that's something I really like to talk about with my, you know, travel guests that like we, you know, we go at the pace of the people that need the most support. We help one another when we come to difficult terrain. We make sure that we stay hydrated and maybe we're taking a little metamucil supplement because the food is strange. You know, like I think it's good to normalize like taking care of ourselves, especially as we age or as we try new things that might be challenging. Um, that's normal and good and proper and nothing to be ashamed of.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

So and and traveling while fat already has you on like red alert. You already fight or flight all the time because you're just waiting for somebody to say or do something stupid and make them yeah, make themselves look like a total asshole. And so you're already like pumping up your adrenaline is already pumped up. I know I when I go to when I travel, I get myself super cute. I perform femininity, I perform super cute clothes because just so they can't see, like, wow, whatever they say. That like, okay, she's got her, she's got a cute outfit on, whatever. You know, she smells good because I guess people think fat people stink or whatever. I have to, I mean, I do all this performance, so it's fucking exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

No, it is. You gotta like put the armor on before you go out there, you know. So yeah, I like I I try to like, you know, with these events, it's like the travel is the hardest part. And then once you get here, like I want people just to feel like I have your back, I've thought of this stuff ahead of time, I've scouted every single thing that we're doing. There's not gonna be any surprises. It's not, and if there is, then I'm gonna fix it. I'm gonna do my very best in that moment to fix it and address it and get people what they need. And, you know, I think that like I really want to, like you said, like center fat bodies. I think there's so few places in this world where we get treated like royalty and like we are thought of first. And, you know, I'm not perfect, but I do my best to to do that because it's really important to me to create spaces like that where we can just arrive and just exist and not have to have all this sort of like like you said, the armor that we have to put on to just go out into the world. Like, let there be a place where we can kind of escape from all of that, even just for a minute.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

I guess I kind of like perform the good fatty, right? That's what I'm performing. Not a I'm not a bad fatty, I'm a good fatty, whatever that means. Um, before we end, I I do want to talk a little bit about the business stuff that we both kind of geek out about. But um, tell everybody if they want to go on one of your ventures that you mentioned or they want to go on future adventures, how can they get on your mailing list and all that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Yeah, you can go to ambercarnes.com. Um, I have you know subscribe links. Um, if you click on adventure trips, that's on my main menu. There's a special link uh subscribe form on there. Pretty much every page of my website will have that. Um, and the individual trips have uh what's called a hot list. And so if you sign up for that, that means that you're gonna, you know, get kind of extra communication about that trip. I always email the hot list a few days before I open trips to like kind of the general public. And I don't know, sometimes I'm lucky enough that they sell out before I even send it to the mailing list. So it kind of pays to get on one of those if you're really excited and want to make sure that you get a spot because I'm just one person, you know, I'm I'm hoping to expand, but it's only like three or four times a year that I run these type of trips because it takes a lot of work to create a trip that's truly accessible. And I haven't found a travel company that I trust to handle these logistics because they don't really understand the needs that plus size guests or folks with mobility limitations have. It like literally doesn't occur to them. And I'm and we've all been somewhere and weren't able to participate in something because they didn't have a harness that fit us their the where was a weight limit on something or whatever, and like that stuff. Yeah, zipline, right?

SPEAKER_03 42:48

Um zipline in Vegas downtown is stuff, but I think it can't be over 300 pounds.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Yeah, I I I feel like zipline is one of those things that like I would love to offer that as an activity on my retreat, and I also haven't been able to find a tour company that I feel like I can trust. And so, you know, maybe someday I will get to do some of that myself, you know.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

But um uh until then, uh well, I can tell our listeners I really look forward to your newsletter, and I do love how you have the hot list. And um, Lily Asherlein, she her I used to really love her body positive uh newsletter too. I hope she'll she'll get back to that one day. But uh two, two, and then also I always look forward to Reagan's uh newsletters, but those are my my three in the fat photosphere that I really look forward to. And I think there's a couple weeks where you didn't send one out. I was like, I think I better check in on Amber and make sure she's doing okay. It's been a long time. I was like, it's so weird. She hasn't sent one. I feel like a wow, I come up. She hasn't sent one. I know you're a busy woman, but yeah, I love your newsletter. Thank you. Thank you.

Marketing Help Without Social Media

SPEAKER_03 43:47

So business stuff, I know we geek both geek out on this kind of stuff, but I know you can actually help small business owners or independent business owners or any any business owner. You have all kinds of skills in that area because we're always all like having our side hustles. So talk about. That because I have a lot of people who listen that are business owners.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Oh, awesome. Yeah. So I kind of tell people that I'm like a marketing coach for people who hate marketing. In fact, I'm kind of shifting my language around marketing and calling and not even using that word because I think a lot of us who are solo business owners or self-employed or people who have cool projects, community builders, community organizers, you know, we feel like we're not good at marketing or we hear those kind of words and kind of freeze up. And so for me, you know, it's about figuring out ways to share our work with the world and make invitations into our world, build our community and connect with the people that care about what we're doing. And that has such a different feeling than like marketing or content creation or making sales. You know, like I feel like the people who really care about their work and are creating things in the world that didn't exist before, we don't want to do all that. We just want to get to do the cool work. You know, I don't want to sell the trips, I just want to show up on the trips and have a great time with people. And so I've, you know, the past few years, my my first career was in marketing before the yoga stuff. I went to school for graphic design a million years ago. Um, I had marketing roles at corporate and nonprofits and freelance and just about every type of job that you can have. And so um, you know, the trips is sort of like my dream job, but the marketing stuff is my main hustle. And so I do coaching with people about how to share your work without using social media. Um, that's something I've leaned into um since, I don't know, the end of 2023, I would say. Um, and really looking at like what are ways that we can invite people into, you know, these offerings that we have and and the and the things that we do that people can plug into in a way that feels really warm and personal and more like friendship or peer mentorship than marketing or sales or something like that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 45:57

You have the co-working offer and you have some. I know you'll help people with like look at their website and analyze it. And you have um anti-social media. Yeah. What do you call that one?

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Um, well, that that was a webinar that I was doing for a while called Antisocial, the algorithm pity party. And we we did a group called Social Media Dropouts. Um, and you weren't required to like leave social media, but it was just kind of a lighthearted uh way to bring together some people who want to rely less on social media or have discovered that they're putting a lot of time into social media, but they're not seeing a return as far as like more people coming into their business or anyone spending money or anything like that. And so for those of us that, you know, want to kind of like build a tighter community and less feel like we need to talk to an audience and more like we're getting to make connections with individual people and invite them into our work, like that's the kind of stuff that I love to work on. So I do individual one-on-one coaching with people, I call those creative brain dates. And so we get together and really, you know, it's sort of like sitting down with your friend who like can understand you and your business and will like tell you the truth about your own brilliance, which is, I think for those of us who are self-employed, it's really lonely sometimes. And we don't have those, you know, like when you're in a regular job, you sort of have coworkers that like you bounce ideas off of, or they, you know, witness your work and and tell you you did a good job, or you know, whatever. And we just sort of like are by ourselves over here comparing ourselves to everyone else who's only showing the best of themselves on the internet. You know what I mean? And so, like for me, I love the peer mentorship and the things like co-working. Um, I do that once a week and it's free to attend. Um, I set up a Zoom room, we all say what we're gonna work on, we mute our mics, but we have our cameras on. And so you get that kind of body doubling magic. So, like, especially helpful for people who are neurodivergent in some way. Um, it really helps me to be focused just because I have like, I don't know, my little I call them my tiny little supervisors. Like, that's good. You know, even though we're all focused on what we're doing, it's just like a different feeling to have somebody there and like how kind of have that accountability, but in a in a really like low stakes, low pressure way. Um, and it's really fun to kind of hear what other people are working on. People have made connections and little, you know, business collabs and things like that. And um, so I really like hosting those too because it's just I feel like it can get lonely sometimes. And it's nice to to realize that you're not alone and kind of like see yourself reflected by other people. And so we can kind of remember, oh yeah, I am I am good at this. I just feel like I'm not sometimes because I don't have anything to compare it to except for like the chaos in my own brain.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

That's funny. Oh, those those words really resonate with me. The chaos in my own brain. Okay, yeah. Uh every day.

unknown 48:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

Yes, entrepreneurslash, you know, side hustler, side always thinking new things. I know my brain doesn't ever quite down. No. I know you have the same. I do. A lot of us small business owners, independent business owners have the same similar brains.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Yeah. I think, you know, that's why we're drawn to this, because like a traditional job is just like so stifling. And I think like, especially when you're somebody that has a lot of ideas and wants to do a lot of projects, a lot of different interests, you know, like I think a lot of us are drawn to the the side hustle, freelance, solo business life, um, because we, you know, we want to create things that didn't exist in the world, or maybe we just feel like we don't have a place in these sort of traditional roles, you know, whether that's because we're um marginalized in some way, or whether because we're neurodivergent or whatever it is, you know, I think that um so we have to find, you know, find other people that sort of are in the same boat and and rely on each other. So yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you again. Tell everybody your website and your email before we hit. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

It's Ambercarnes, K-A-R-N-E-S.com. And you can get me on email, hello at Ambercarnes.com. Um, if you go to my website, there's a contact page, and you can sign up for my newsletter and all that kind of stuff. Um I'm not on social media that much these days. I have been dipping my toe back into Instagram, but um IG the other day. I was like, Yeah, I've been on there. I need to take it off my phone again. I feel like I got a slot machine in my pocket and it's just immediately addictive. But um, I do spend a lot of time in my newsletter, so that's kind of where I live. And uh, if you want to keep up with me, that's the best place to go.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

And you talk a little bit of everything in your newsletter, even like the business stuff at the bottom, right? You talk about the coworking and the web stuff. So it's all there, y'all. If you're willing to check it out, yeah, she's great. So I'm so appreciative. I'm so grateful for your time. I'm grateful that you're on the West Coast now. So maybe we'll run into each other a little bit more in person. Yes. I appreciate yes, I appreciate you what what you put out there into the world and all the um all the work you do for all of us, uh faddies that need more support from people like you. So thank you for all that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Yeah, thanks for having me. And I'm glad we got to have this conversation. And hit me up next time you're down this way, we'll we'll go for sure, for sure. Some coffee or something good to eat and chat it up. Sounds like a plan. Okay. All right, thanks, Amber.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

See you later, alligator. See ya.

Where To Find Amber And Wrap

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Thank you for checking out this week's episode of Big Sexy Chat. Make sure that you like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And don't forget to go to our socials at Big Sexy Chat on Instagram and Facebook. And don't forget to also shop BigSexy Merch at BigSexyMerch.com for all your sassy, spicy, and in your face t shirts for everybody. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.